Writing | Journalism | Media

There’s something absolutely necessary about mobility. Not so you can go to work or buy apples, but so you can see things, sense things that are unsensable if you’re not moving.

There’s something exhilarating about moving. Not moving like running or cycling, or any of those other things that I used to think were the only association with this sense of exhilaration. No, the kind of moving that makes the air rush past your face and gets dust on your lips and in your eyes a little bit. The kind of movement that, as its happening you go, oh, look at the cool architecture on that old bridge column, but you can only look for a fleeting moment because you have to keep watch on what’s ahead. You have to keep looking forward.

Mobility is liberating. Deciding to cross the river on a bridge going your own pace, waving runners past and winking at cyclists, its liberating. Deciding to go buy shampoo because now you can. Deciding to go home because now you want to. Not because the ride you booked is scheduled.

Knowing that even if pain is stopping you in your bipedal tracks, you can make new, wheeled ones. That you don’t have to depend on your tired parts to carry you, frustrated and hurrying, wishing you hadn’t brought so much stuff, getting impatient with the crosswalk light not changing fast enough or the city not putting a bench there for you to sit on. Knowing that mobility doesn’t have to be sparked by muscles and neurons. It can come from other electrical sources, that can be recharged nightly.

That absolutely necessary something about mobility, is going for the sake of going. Its filling your mind and your senses with new things, things you haven’t seen in a long time: the olympic stadium, the river from above, a decrepit looking ferris wheel, spring storm clouds rolling in. Its about breathing in the city, smelling all the hops and roasted meat and cigarettes and exhaust, feeling trucks barreling past you and pedestrians strutting along. Its about being in the city, but more importantly being a part of it. Connecting and sensing it on your body through your eyes and on your face. The absolutely necessary something about mobility, is experiencing your surroundings, not just being transferred where you need to go. There is everything to see between here and there.